At the time of the incident, however, the referees only assessed World Peace with a flagrant foul — no flagrant-two and an ejection, and this was after the officials reviewed the play multiple times at the scorer’s table via replay.

Lakers head coach Mike D’Antoni said on Tuesday he believes the suspension came as a result of some of the things World Peace has done in the past.

“I’m sure that goes into it,” D’Antoni said when asked if he felt that World Peace’s history of on-court transgressions led to the suspension. “I think from their philosophy or policy that everything goes into it. They look at the player, they look at who did it and past experiences and they go over it like that.”

To me, there was no question that the shot to the face delivered by World Peace — however gentle — was intentional.

Anytime a player like World Peace gets into a skirmish, situation, or altercation with a player of the opposing team, they try to do things that on the surface may seem innocent, but in reality are meant to escalate the situation and cause the opposing player to lose it.

A shot to the face certainly falls into that category, and I’m not sure the league needed to look much further than that into World Peace’s past to feel confident in handing down that suspension.

The problem is the Lakers have the most incompetent coach in Laker history. Dumbtoni just can’t do anything right as regards the players, including keeping MWP on the straight and narrow or keeping Pau Gasol engaged without pissing him off. Looks like MWP’s one game suspension didn’t hurt the Lakers as they beat the Nyets.